Various types of image inspections, such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), radio isotope (RI), positron emission tomography (PET), or echoes, are conventionally conducted to detect abnormality inside a living organism and examine the cause thereof. During such an image inspection, it is extremely important to, as well as detecting the abnormality inside a living organism, estimate what kind of disease state causes the detected abnormality.
During the above image inspection, doctors often make a visual assessment; however, due to the recent improvements in software technology, assessments are made by image processing using a computer. As a part of the above, intensive studies are carried out on computer-aided diagnoses for image inspections. There are various types of computer-aided diagnoses; however, computer-aided diagnoses are here defined as estimations of the disease state with regard to detected abnormality by using software.
Doctor's visual assessments of image inspections involve human elements, and the assessments are varied and they are not always specific due to doctor's experiences, specialized field, or the like. Therefore, doctors use computer-aided diagnoses during assessments of image inspections so that it is expected that variations of visual assessments are reduced and the diagnosis performance is improved and equalized.